


Love of the Father (willingly given)

by Padraigen



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Depression, Gen, Legilimency (Harry Potter), Magical Pregnancy, Morfin Gaunt is a filthy liar, Mpreg, Past Mpreg, Tom Riddle Sr. Lives, What Have I Done, What-If, wtf even is this
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-03
Updated: 2020-07-03
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:41:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25051843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Padraigen/pseuds/Padraigen
Summary: Tom Riddle enters the Riddle House with every intention of murdering his father and walking away with another Horcrux.But no matter how hard Tom tries, there are certain things even he can't plan for.
Relationships: Tom Riddle & Tom Riddle Sr.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 142





	Love of the Father (willingly given)

**Author's Note:**

> don't even ask what this is because I do not know...
> 
> hope you'll enjoy, anyway :)

Tom Riddle strode up the drive that led to the manor on top of the hill with his shoulders set, his jaw clenching. The Gaunt ring weighed heavy on his finger, and he clenched his hands to shake the feeling.

He had been waiting for this day since his idiot uncle had told him of his heritage—That he was a descendant of _Salazar Slytherin_ himself. That his mother was a dead woman called Merope Gaunt. And that his disgraceful Muggle father had abandoned him before he’d even been born.

Tom thought it was about time his dear father atoned for that particular offense.

The Yorkshire air was cool and crisp on his skin, the sky appropriately cloudy and gloomy. Tom could feel the tension inside him build with every step closer to the house he took.

When he came upon the gates, he waved his wand with a silent but powerful _Alohomora_ , pleased when the gates flew open. He didn’t pause in his step once, continuing his way up to the grand front entrance at the brisk pace he’d set.

Stopping in front of the doors, he took a brief moment to compose his features into something less obviously murderous and knocked.

Unsurprisingly, a maid opened the door, her eyes widening at the sight of him.

Tom grinned, sharp and predatory, and demanded with as much mocking pleasantness as he was capable of, “Tom Riddle. Take me to him.”

The maid swallowed audibly and nodded, turning on her heel. She led him out of the foyer and down a hallway, past the kitchen and to a set of doors. Tom stopped her before she could push them open and muttered a low _Obliviate_. Then he cast an _Imperio_ , compelling her to leave this place and never return.

The maid scurried away without looking back. Tom smiled as he watched her go. He turned back to the doors once she had disappeared, closed his eyes, and focused on the beat of his heart.

It pulsed excitedly within the cage of his chest, and for a moment he had to pause to clear all signs of his anticipation from his demeanor. Then he burst through the doors.

The first thing his eyes locked onto were the wide blue ones of an older woman whose face was lined and hair was dark with streaks of silver running through it. He turned to look at the man to her right, who had been sitting at the head of the table but was now getting to his feet, aghast. His hairline was receding and his face was even more wrinkled than his wife’s.

Lovely, Tom thought. While he was here, he could get rid of his wretched, Muggle grandparents, too.

Finally, he turned to the man he’d come here for.

Tom Riddle Sr. was standing, having leapt from his chair much quicker than his father and spun around from where his back had been turned to Tom.

Tom could see why Merope had once been attracted to him, although he wondered if she’d think the same if she could have seen him now. Riddle had dark, prominent shadows under his blue eyes that had probably been there for years. His face was gaunt and sickly pale, and his clothes hung off him like they’d been made for a bigger man.

Seeing the man who was his father for the first time in his life affected Tom more than he thought it would. He let his burgeoning hatred for that fact guide him as he took a smooth step forward.

“Hello,” he drawled, ignoring his grandparents completely in favor of keeping eye contact with his father. “I don’t believe we’ve met. I’m— ”

“Tom.”

Tom faltered. Of course, it shouldn’t have surprised him that Riddle recognized him—Tom had no doubt that he was probably the spitting image of his father when he was younger, much to his irritation—but somehow in his imaginings of this moment, he always had to reveal to Riddle exactly who he was, taking pleasure in the way Riddle’s eyes might widen in horror and even, perhaps, revulsion.

No matter.

“Yes,” he confirmed. He opened his mouth to continue the speech he’d prepared, but Riddle surprised him yet again.

“You’re alive?”

What?

Tom held back a snarl at the implication of those words. Riddle had assumed he’d died? Did he truly think he’d been able to get rid of him so easily? Tom’s lips curled in a nasty smirk, delighted by the way he’d get to rectify such an erroneous assumption.

But then he looked at Riddle, really _looked_ at him, and what he saw was not horror or revulsion at all. It was… awe. Riddle’s eyes were wide and hopeful, filled with— _longing_? No, Tom was reading him wrong, he had to have been. This was… this was not how this was meant to be going _at all_ —Riddle had managed to surprise him at every turn and that fact enraged him.

He no longer cared about making a grand show of this. He wanted Riddle gone and his grandparents, too. What did theatrics matter when everyone who would be witness to it would also be dead soon after?

So Tom lifted his wand, the Killing Curse on the tip of his tongue, and he was going to kill him, _he was_ , except…

Why was Riddle looking at him like that? He had to know, he _had_ to, and so _Avada Kedavra_ was not the spell that left his lips, but instead, “ _Legilimens._ ”

Slipping into Riddle’s head was laughably easy, but then, one couldn’t expect a Muggle to have defenses set in place to hide his mind. He pushed through the surface, through the shock at his appearance, the disbelief, and, _yes_ , the longing, but also the sheer _wonder_ and, and… the elation?

Finally, before he could think too long on that, he burst through all the muddled emotions and fell into a memory.

—

_Tom wiped his lips with a damp washcloth, his hands shaky and his mouth tasting sour. The ill feeling hadn’t completely faded, but he didn’t think he’d be sick anymore, at least for now._

_The reason why he was ill had been pushed far into the back of his mind, as he feared he might actually be rendered catatonic if he thought about the realities of it too hard for too long, or if he kept replaying what_ she _had done to him._

_He hadn’t spoken to a soul since he’d come home after the whole ‘ordeal’ and had had a breakdown on the front porch. He’d spilled everything to his parents while his mother tried to usher him through the front door, wary of someone overhearing regardless of the fact they were at least a half kilometer away from their nearest neighbor._

_That night still filled him with a deep shame that he also attempted to ignore, with less success._

_His father didn’t try to get him to talk, but his mother sat with him every night before she went to bed, desperately trying to tease something out of him_. _Anything more than a half-hearted nod, shake of the head, or shrug._

 _He knew they didn’t believe him_ — _at least, not about all of it, certainly not about the part he was trying very hard not to think about. And that was alright. He wasn’t always sure he believed it, either. He guessed they’d all see the proof of it for themselves soon enough._

_That didn’t mean he wanted to talk about it._

—

The memory didn’t make much sense, no matter which way Tom tried to look at it, and that alone, that incomprehension, forced Tom to look deeper.

Tom never just… _didn’t_ understand something. He would figure it out. He always did.

—

 _The first time he’d felt it_ — _the_ thing— _Tom had not known exactly what it was that he was feeling._

_Now, though, the little nudges from inside him were undeniable. They grabbed his attention ruthlessly, and Tom allowed them to because he was fascinated by them in an admittedly twisted and unhealthy way._

_After all, if he was forced to pay attention to it, to the_ thing _, then he would not just be staring listlessly out his window. He would not be drifting, thoughtless, through each and every day, the hours passing him by almost exactly as they did when he’d been with_ her _. At least this proved that something had changed, that he was thinking something because he_ wanted _to think it, and not because someone was thinking his thoughts for him._

 _So he focussed on the thing, felt the way it prodded him from the inside, the way it squirmed around like a worm, like a_ parasite _. And he hated it freely, because he wanted to, because he was_ allowed _to, and not once did he permit himself to think about_ her _._

—

Understanding was slow, like molasses, working leisurely but steadily through his brain. But Tom unintentionally fought that understanding, hesitant now of whether or not he really wanted to know.

—

 _The act of hating the thing_ — _the worm, the parasite_ — _mostly fell in on itself when Tom lifted his shirt one day only to find a foot where he was sure a foot was absolutely not supposed to be._

 _Blinking rapidly didn’t make it go away and wishing never did anything for him. The evidence was irrefutable_ — _it was_ right there _, beside his navel. A miniature heel and impossibly tiny toes distorting the thinning skin of his stomach._

 _Without consciously deciding to do so, Tom lifted his hand and brushed the foot, softly, surprised when it jerked away for a moment, as if tickled, before returning to its original position. He did this a few more times, and it was only when the act stopped being amusing and he started to feel guilty for disturbing it_ — _the thi—no,_ _the_ child— _that he realized everything had changed once again._

_He figured it had been a long time coming._

—

Tom tried to pull away after that, desperate to escape. But his father wouldn’t let him go.

—

_He sat at his desk, heavy with child, feeling better today than he had throughout the majority of that week. He had a piece of parchment laid out in front of him and an ornate ballpoint pen in his hand._

_At the moment he was motionless, focussed on the gentle but firm nudges he could feel from inside him. The child was not generally an especially active baby, so whenever he did feel like making his presence known, Tom was always willing to grant him his attention._

_Tom had taken to writing letters in the last few weeks, filling them with the words he wanted to say but couldn’t speak_ — _to his mother and his father, but mostly to his child._

‘My dear child…’ _he would always begin those letters. ‘Child’ because he didn’t definitively know what the gender of the baby was_ — _a boy, his mind always liked to supply, perhaps a father’s intuition, but he didn’t know for sure_ — _and ‘dear’ because the child had somehow become the dearest, most precious thing in the world to him, although he couldn’t quite remember when that had happened._

 _He wrote many things, but nothing so much as he’d written_ ‘I’m sorry…’

_For he was exceedingly sorrowful for the fact that he would probably never get to meet his child. The procedure that he would have to undergo to remove the babe was exceptionally dangerous, but absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, his odds of survival were not very high._

_And so he always ended these letters with, ‘_ I love you,’ _because it might have been the only chance he’d get to say the words, and he wanted his child to know. He never wanted him_ — _or her_ — _to doubt it._

—

No.

No, no, no.

_Nonononononononono…_

—

_Tom rocked the cot, slowly and gently, so as not to wake the slumbering child within. The stitches on his stomach twinged painfully whenever he moved, so he kept activity to a minimum, staring out his window with a gin in hand._

_Alcohol had been a luxury he hadn’t been entitled to over the past few months_ — _longer, even, since he hadn’t gotten to enjoy it since before_ her— _and he’d sort of missed it. Now he knew to savor every sip._

_Apparently, this was what contentment felt like. This was happiness. He never would’ve guessed it looked like this._

_His mind was drifting as it was wont to do_ — _but not in any detrimental way_ , _which felt like an improvement_ — _when the door to his study suddenly flew open. Tom startled and whirled around, his drink splashing over the rim of his glass and wetting his fingers._

_His mother stood there, her face white. Tom stared at her and felt something cold as ice drop deep into his gut. “What?”_

_“It’s them,” she whispered, her voice sharp with worry. “The Gaunts. They’re_ here _.”_

_The ice in his gut extended its frozen fingers and clawed at every part of him that it could reach, wrapping tightly around his lungs and making it hard for him to breathe._

_Focus. He had to focus._

_His mother stood there for a moment longer, her wide blue eyes afraid but fierce, before she disappeared from the doorway once more._

_With a shaky hand, Tom deposited his glass onto his desk, wiping his fingers against the expensive fabric of his blazer. Then he moved to the side of the cot—the ache of his lower belly barely registering—and took a moment to gaze upon the little boy still blissfully asleep._

_His heart constricted, but he forced himself to reach into the cot and, with a tenderness he wouldn’t have thought he possessed even a year ago, picked up his son. Tom settled him against his chest, one arm supporting his weight—though he was so tiny, to Tom he didn’t seem to weigh hardly anything at all—his other hand covering the back of his head and most of his upper back, it was so big in comparison. He brushed his lips over the boy’s head, soft, dark hair tickling his nose._

_Then he steeled himself and left his study, striding down a rarely used hall. Halting, he plucked the string hanging from the ceiling and pulled, moving out of the way for the ladder that descended. Readjusting his hold on his child, Tom climbed the ladder as quickly and carefully as he could manage with the throbbing pain of his middle._

_The attic was a bit chillier than the house itself, but he would wrap the boy in blankets and hope it would suffice._

_After a moment of searching, he found the cradle that had been his as a child and lowered his son to the cushioned bottom of it. The soft whimper that left the boy’s lips was almost enough to bowl him over, but he only allowed himself to caress his thumb over a downy cheek for a second before he made himself pull away._

_Tom found a pile of blankets that he shook out before arranging them around the blessedly still sleeping child._

_Before he left, he whispered, “I love you, Tom.”_

—

Tom wrenched himself out, finally, and found his father kneeling on the ground before him, one hand clutching his head.

Riddle stared up at him with wet blue eyes, and Tom didn’t understand how he—a _Muggle_ —was compelling him to plunge back in again, to watch the whole story.

But plunge he did.

—

_He came to with a throbbing ache in his temple, his mouth tasting oddly metallic. His hand lifted to prod at his stinging forehead and came away wet, tiny shards of glass sticking to his fingertips._

_Tom opened his eyes to the sight of blood coating his fingers, and he had to blink a few times to figure out where he was and what had happened._

_When he remembered, crippling terror seized him, and it was an immense effort to stand up but exigency fueled him. His shirt stuck to his abdomen wetly, and he realized absently that his stitches must have come undone._

_Getting one foot to go in front of the other was a feat in and of itself, every step an achievement. He knocked things over carelessly in his pursuit of balance, pushing forward as if it was the only thing in life that mattered… and perhaps it was._

_Tom paused for only a moment when he saw his parents, lying out on the floor. He only remained there for the time it took to determine the rise and fall of their chests—knocked out, not dead—before propelling himself forward again._

_It took an absurdly long time to reach the hallway leading to the attic, and when he finally did, the sight caused his knees to give out._

_The ladder had been re-lowered. The Gaunt men had found it, found_ him _, and no, no, no…_

_Tom couldn’t let himself believe it. He crawled forward, head throbbing incessantly, and dragged himself up the ladder, one rung at a time._

_But the cradle was long empty by the time he finally reached it, only the blankets left behind._

_Gone, gone, his son was_ gone _._

_Tom let out a sharp cry, the sound terrible and heart-wrenching._

—

Tom could have only wished that that had been the end of it.

—

_He wasn’t foolish enough to go after the Gaunts by himself, but he wasn’t about to let them get away with his child, either._

_So it was mere days—and a hefty sum—later that the authorities were knocking down the door of the Gaunt residence._

_The place was a hovel—floors stained, cobwebs sticking to seemingly every nook and cranny. Only the barest light filtered in through the dirty windows, and dust coated every surface in sight. Tom felt sickened by the possibility of his son being here for even a day._

_How did people who could literally bend reality to their whims bear to live this way? The thought mystified him._

_The small house was searched top to bottom, but it became clear after only fifteen minutes, at best, that the only living beings in this miserable dwelling were the snake hissing by the foot of a bed, and the brother—Morfin Gaunt._

_He was drenched in the stench of alcohol and poor personal hygiene, but Tom ignored it as a bobby slapped a pair of cuffs onto Gaunt’s wrists._

_He stared into Gaunt’s bloodshot eyes and demanded, “Where is he?”_

_The smirk Gaunt granted him in reply was as ugly and feral as he was, and it sent a horrifying chill rippling down his spine._

_“You’re too late, Riddle,” he said, wholly aware that with only four simple words, he was ending Tom’s entire existence. “The little runt didn’t even make it through the first night.”_

—

Tom ripped away, but not before he’d been flooded by the full weight of Riddle’s grief.

Sorrow, anguish, remorse, rage, heartbreak, regret, despondency—emotions all strong enough to knock him back against the doors he’d come in through. Agony so powerful, it surpassed even the fiercest hatred Tom had ever felt.

Tom looked at his father now, shocked. _Merlin_ , he was _shaking_.

Riddle was still kneeling on the floor. A single tear trailed silently down his drawn face. Tom wanted to be disgusted, told himself he could only laugh at such a pitiful display of emotion, but in reality he wasn’t able to pin down exactly what he was feeling.

He lifted his head to gape at his grandparents, still leaning back against the doors since he was uncertain if he moved whether or not his legs would be able to support him. His grandmother had a hand covering her mouth, and she was crying quietly as she glanced at her son, then up to her grandson, and back again. His grandfather’s uneasy gaze was solely on him, a frown marring his weathered face.

Tom turned back to his father and tried to lift his wand. He tried again, and then again, but it had suddenly become inexplicably heavy. _What the hell was happening?_

“Don’t leave.” Riddle finally broke the silence, voice hoarse and low, as if he hadn’t used it in years. He looked at him now as if this was the moment he'd been waiting for; as if _Tom_ was the reason he hadn't ended it all years ago. Then his eyes trailed to where Tom’s empty hand was twitching towards the doorknob. “Please, don’t go.”

 _Go_? Go. Yes, that was exactly it. He needed to go, to _leave_. Right now.

Riddle must have seen his intentions because he reached forward, his hand stretching out as if to touch him. Or perhaps even grab him.

Tom jerked away, pushing as far as was physically possible into the door, although this action didn’t succeed very well in getting away from his father. “ _Don’t touch m_ e,” he snarled, his voice far more tremulous than he would ever admit.

He spun on his heel and blasted the doors open, satisfied with the way the wood splintered, and strode away.

Somehow he was back on the Riddle drive and passing through the gates with no memory of how he’d got there. He stalked away as quickly as he could before his swift pace could be counted as running.

Tom Riddle did not _run away_. He just… needed to think.

For today, at least, his father would live.

**Author's Note:**

> apologies for any medical/historical inaccuracies! i choose to believe i've left this off as a hopeful ending, but feel free to think whatever you like <3
> 
> (i do not have any explanation for Tom Sr.'s inexplicable pregnancy, other than... magic, amirite? xD)


End file.
